Operation Jesse James
Operation Jesse James also known as the Sack of Fort Knox, was a military operation carried out by the Confederate States Armed Forces as a means of financing the newborn Nation, the goal was Fort Knox, a facility in the United States of America that They kept the United States Bullion Depository, which is used to house a large portion of the United States' official gold reserves. The operation took place in former Kentucky, south of Louisville and north of Elizabethtown and eventually desiganted the destruction of a coalition of raiders and Tribals hostils there as a major secondary objective. While all the loot was valued at 147.34 million troy ounces (4,583 metric tons) of gold reserves with a market value of US $ 208.2 billion of before of great war. Background By 2215, the government of the New Confederate States of America had already annexed the entire former Gulf Commonwealth. The main form of feeding and financing of armies was mostly through the bellum se ipsum alet: the military strategy of feeding and funding armies primarily with the resources of occupied territories. Due to the need to compensate the annexed territories in a violent way (elimination of a ruling force, rebellion and etc.), the Confederate High Command decided an operation with the objective of giving a Grand Heist that allows the Confederation a high long-term financing. This goal was the United States Bullion Depository often known as Fort Knox, a fortified vault building located next to the Old United States Army post of Fort Knox, Kentucky. The vault was used to store a large portion of the United States' gold reserves as well as other precious items belonging to or in custody of the federal government. It was holds roughly 147 million troy ounces (4,580 metric tons) of gold bullion, over half of the Treasury’s stored gold. Order of Battle. For this Heist, the army deployed a brigade of the First Mechanized Infantry Division under the direct command of Brigadier General Wilson Baxton along with a Ranger Battalion led by Lieutenant Colonel Jack Mosby. The contingent would consist of a total of 4,500 soldiers including 500 Rangers, 10 M551 Sheridan Light Tank, 10 M60 "Patton" Main Battle tank, 5 M50A5 Ontos and 5 M49 Heavy Tank that offered armored support in case of being in front of forces equipped with heavy weaponry or armored vehicles. For transporting troops and material they carried M51 Infantry Fighting Vehicle and Pick-up Truck. In addition, they received support in the form of 20 AH-56E Cheyenne and VB-01 Vertibird Gunship together with UH-1 Iroquois "Huey" Prior recognition of the exercise zone by reconnaissance units and interrogations of prisoners taken from Raiders and local merchants, showed that in that region there was a Warlord named "Goldie Pimp" due to the name, the possibility that his palace and Center of power is Fort Knox itself. The acknowledgment reported that Goldie Pimp possessed a force of 10,000 armed combatants apart from a fleet of Technicals along with twenty tanks and several artillery batteries, the latter extracted from Fort Knox. Offensive The offensive began with the deployment of the first Rangers Battalion through a HALO jump on CV-80 at 04:13 in the vicinity of Fort Knox. At the same time the troops in command of the Brig. General Wilson Baxton began their advance towards Fort Knox. Airborne operations. The First Rangers Battalion led by Lieutenant Colonel Jack Mosby, one of the oldest officers in the Confederate States Armed Forces. The First Rangers Battalion had to initially resist about five hours without ground support except the air force that took 15 minutes between refueling and attacks. The operation started successfully initially. On landing, almost all troops reached the top of their fall zones without incident. 89% of the troops landed at or within 1,000 meters (3,300 feet). Due to the little military discipline and the carelessness of defending the skies, no fire was opened against the CV-80s even when they released their passengers. This was due to the fact that most of the guards were drunk or asleep or in worse conditions to exercise a defense even if it was pathetic. The first thirty minutes, the 500 paratroopers spent regrouping with their platoons and sections to later start a cleaning operation. Due to the heterogeneous naturalization among the enemy raiders, Lieutenant Colonel Mosby decided to eliminate anyone who is not in a cage or tied. In a matter of an hour the outskirts of Fort Knox had been cleared and all those slaves who were in conditions to flee were released, although many ended up dead at the hands of the tribals who arrived at the alarm given at 06:30 when a group of Muldraugh's Tribals arrived but withdrew when shot by the rangers, escaping 4 out of 10. Given that, Mosby ordered to prepare for an attack. For those heights of the operation, the casualties raiders were 200 fighters. Around 6.50 in the morning, the attack began with a bombardment of M119 howitzer with 105 mm. The bombing was inaccurate but it was more an alarm than an attack itself. The Rangers, focused on taking cover and preparing to receive the enemies in the only way they could receive the tribal by the Mosby Rangers: shooting them with a Browning M2 and possessing dozens. Mosby had made each squad equipped with a Browning M2 along with RPG-7. This was done with the aim of not walking weapons lacking in case of unpleasant surprises. Thing that materialized when the tribal advanced in human wave attack that were repelled with machine guns, light mortars and semi-automatic rifles or machine guns. This situation reminded Mosby's second-in-command of the behavior of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II in the face of the possibility of surrender. After learning about this and its similarity, Mosby gave the order not to take prisoners in addition to ordering their 81mm mortars to shoot rounds M375A2 which is White Phosphorus, which wreaked havoc against the tribals which still continued advancing to burn each other when one injured by phosphorus hugged another in search of help. It was still two hours before General Wilson Baxton arrived to start the extraction, but first they had to cross the minefield around the Vault building in Fort Knox. Land advance. The armored column led by General Wilson Baxton arrived in Elizabethtown, 25 kilometers from Fort Knox at 07:40, stopping before a raider resistance led by a Warlord that responded to the name of Atek Atek. Then it was possible to identify that the raider had a caste system, where tribal and tribal descendants were treated like cannon fodder sparsely armed with melee weaponry even of pipe weapons, while the raiders used better quality, even making a super-heavy T28 Tank with a 105 mm cannon appeared, which with extreme ease destroyed two M51 Infantry Fighting Vehicles, making it necessary to eliminate the T-28 crew, which received the nickname of the Iron Beast. A squad led by Corporal O'Sullivan took the initiative and managed to approach the Tank, eliminating his crew, managing to capture him being used by the crew of one of the M51 I.F.V. keeping the Iron Beast callsign. Finally at 09:34 the column managed to reach Fort Knox. Arrival at Fort Knox. At 09:40 Brigadier General Wilson Baxton met Lieutenant Colonel Mosby, who had taken the liberty to build fortifications before the artillery fire from Muldraugh, so the Cheyenne was ordered to locate and destroy the artillery. Due to the difficulties of locating the artillery, it was decided to simply bombard the forest that separated Muldraugh with white phosphorus projectiles, causing a forest fire. At the same time, Baxton engineers began the work of demining the surroundings of the United States Bullion Depository complex. It took two hours to get rid of a total of 300 mines, which alternated between fragmentation, plasma even E.M.P. When Confederate assault teams entered, they were attacked by Goldie Pimp, who was discovered to be a ghoul, more specifically the commanding officer of the garrison in charge of protecting the Vault. Almost driven by madness, he became a warlord with a strong syndrome of compulsive accumulation collecting valuable things instead of garbage. Due to the large number of security robots, it was necessary to use a total of 30 E.M.P. grenades. Finally Goldie Pimp just executed for war crimes and being ghoul. Extraction. For the extraction a total of 40 Protectrons Utility was used to transport boxes full of gold bars to armored transport. While the Rangers led by Mosby had undertaken the offensive moving towards Muldraugh to eliminate the remaining leaders from the attackers. While the rest of the troops had established fortifications of rapid creation like covers formed by sandbags and the use of vehicles while the IFVs and tanks offered fire of suppression and cover. Local defense. Lieutenant Colonel Mosby led his men to Muldraugh which lacked a large contingent of enemy troops because most were attacking Fort Knox troops. The encounter was intense, but the Americans had the advantage of modern weaponry, including Chinalake and RPG-7 grenade launchers, compared to the old pipe rifles used by the tribal and raiders. Once the artillery crews were neutralized, Mosby ordered the artillery to decimate the attackers, so they fired 10 rounds of artillery each cannon. Faced with such a surprise attack, the Fort Knox attackers withdrew to attack those they believe were traitors. But when they left the tree line, they saw that their cannons were on fire and were greeted by heavy machine gun fire that decimated their ranks causing their flight. Mosby and the Rangers returned just at dusk. General Wilson congratulated Mosby and decided to maintain the position to leave the next day, without the danger of being ambushed at night. Return. At 10:00, Fort Knox received a heavy bombardment. While the troops withdrew from the area with air support protecting them. Aftermath and Effects Category:Events Category:Battles Category:Templates